r3v.com

You know, often the cases the ACLU picks to defend can be distasteful and unpleasant... but that's what they are there for. Freedom of Speech is meaningless if you can't say something that someone, or everyone, finds distasteful.

This is no such case.

In San Diego, a 15 year old high school student named Malia Fontana wore an American flag in her back pocket to protest the censorship of a fellow student who was forced to remove an American flag headband the month prior. When a school security guard told her to remove it, she questioned them. She was then brought to the assistant principle's office and written up.

For wearing an American flag. Think about that for a moment. This is America. It was an American flag. America was suposedly founded on the ideas of freedom. The flag is a symbol of that ideology. Ok, are we on the same page regarding how ridiculously ironic that is? Yeah. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.

Apparently, she's not going to have to spend any time in detention, but this negative report will remain in her otherwise spotless records until six months after graduation. (Although I imagine her mother and the ACLU are fighting that.) She's a sophomore right now. Hopefully when this girl applies to college, the various Universities will see that report and realize that this kid is fucking awesome and they'd be lucky to have someone like her are their institution.

It's kids like her that allow me to maintain a tenuous grasp on the hope that the future of America is not, in fact, lost.